The Hard Man
by Sylvie Orp
Summary: Just trying out a 'voice'. You may remember the U.S pulp magazines and the hard private eyes played by the likes of Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney - so, apologies to Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane !


She was a dame all right; a dame right down to her pretty little manicured toes. Her legs went all the way to the top of the shaft and if a broad could ooze sex appeal, this one could certainly ooze. She had a boyfriend by the name of Bodie, William Bodie. She liked her men like she liked her eggs - hard boiled. This was hard man all right, but soft all the same. Soft where it mattered. Soft in the heart and not in the head. He was crazy about her. Did I say that her name was Norah? Yeah, it was Norah. They'd met in a smoky dive off the Tottenham Court Road. What an address. Is it a court or a road? These limeys can never make up their minds about these things. Charing Cross Station ain't on Charing Cross Road, did you know that? How these bums ever find their way around in the daytime beats me. Maybe they still think there's a war on and no one's told them different and they're still trying to confuse the opposition.

This Bodie dude is certainly confused, though. His girl has been playing around and that ain't smart. He thought he was her one-and-only and she's been playing him as a patsy. She only has to click her pretty manicured fingers and he comes running. That's not a good thing for a hard man to do; not a good place for hard man to be. He'd finish shooting up the bad guys then plays the kitten for her, and her alone. She loves him for his looks - and his wallet. He's lean and mean. He has the look of a wolf out of uniform. Broad shouldered, smart and sharp as a tailor's knife. She likes him by her side. He complements her. Yeah, she likes that word. She likes most words she doesn't understand. It makes her feel intelligent. But this dude has brains in his head as well as his trousers, and his one-sided attempt at intelligent conversation leaves him exhausted and frustrated. But she can take that; she can take anything he throws her way. She needs to play him and talk sweet and he gets to come round to her way of limited thinking again.

This Bodie has a pal, Doyle. He doesn't like Norah, and Norah sure as sweet pippin doesn't like him. She thinks him crafty and sly. She doesn't trust him as far as the end of her patience - and that ain't far, believe me. She had thought that Doyle was a pansy and was trying to take her man away from her, but Bodie had got angry at any such suggestion and she had to be real nice to him again to make up for it. She found out from a girlfriend of hers that this Doyle character was making questions and getting all kinds of interesting answers about her; answers Norah would want hidden from the world and certainly from her playmate. She'd have to think hard about what to do with this question-and-answer man. He was getting to be a serious nuisance, and Norah wasn't skilled at hard thinking. She talked to a couple of heavies she knew who worked out of Soho and they told her not to worry her pretty head about it. Doyle wasn't one of the busies any more and had higher fruit to pluck than her little petty scams and businesses. Norah, being a simple soul, accepted this higher wisdom and kept out of Doyle's line of sight.

Norah had asked Bodie how he'd known of this Doyle creep and he'd been evasive. Yeah, that was another of Norah's 'big' words. She collected words like a secret alcoholic collects bottles. She figured that Bodie had been on the wrong side of Doyle's law when Doyle was a copper and didn't like to reveal what those crimes may have been. Not that Norah would have minded. They could have swapped stories and traded secrets. She could have taken him places and met with interesting people, but some other lady friends had said that Bodie was trouble; big trouble. One even said that he and Doyle were running together, but no-one seemed to know their trade - if the tales were true. Norah listened to a lot of stories over several weeks. The weeks turned to months and Bodie was beginning to turn his eyes elsewhere. Despite her best efforts and performances, she was losing his attention. He'd caught her on one occasion having a conversation with a guy, and he'd gone all green-eyed jealousy on her. Christ, it was only a conversation. Ok, so she'd been lip to lip with the guy at the time, and her hand down the back of his trousers, but can't a mate get cosy with a mate once in a while? Men are such girls sometimes. Then he happened to walk into a wine bar while she was having a similar conversation with another cat. Once may have been a co-incidence, twice caught out looked like a certain Mr Devious Doyle pulling Bodie's strings and pointing him in the right direction to look for trouble. Trouble, who wants trouble?


End file.
